China Hacking on The Rise

It seems like lately China has been the center of a lot of cyber attacks on western companies and government facilities.

According to some reports China is the place of origin for some 1.6 billion attacks monthly and has cost the UK an estimated £27bn. The U.S has suffered breaches in the pentagon and it is assumed that several attacks to the world larges oil and gas companies, some of which people fear might have caused a loss of some important industrial secrets.

Police in China recently cracked down on some of the hacker groups based in that country. Last year they reportedly made hundreds of arrests and closed down a network that was said to have some 180,000 members. However as anyone who knows hackers can tell you, that won’t stop anything and the Chinese government seems to be learning that lesson. Even with all the supposed arrests last year there was still a ‘security’ event held last month by a well-known Chinese hacking group, it even got sponsor from a security firm that supposedly has connections to the country’s government.

There seems to be a kind of weird agreement the Chinese government has with it’s hacker groups. People fear that China’s hackers and government are working together in some kind of government-sponsored hacking of other countries. If that’s the case there is reason to be a little concerned. It reminds me of a story I read a while back about how world war 3 might start. I’m not paranoid in the least and think it’s kind of funny actually that people are, but the story said that although the country is 2 billion strong, most of their military prowess lies in their navy. So they would need a big technical advantage in order to reach our shores. Hackers might be providing that now by getting into systems in the U.S and UK.

I want to stress that I don’t believe that China is planning world war 3, every self proclaimed hacker or security expert I’ve met is mostly;y in it for the fun and challenge and have no malicious intent. Of course there are always those damned bad apples.

• By: syeed@techsual.com
• Source: Sky News